Apollo Reliant 60W - TC with TCR adjustment, including Stainless Steel support

[f1vefour]

The battery door does screw on, it has a coin slot so it's easy to remove.

The button is in between clicky and soft, it has enough click you can feel it but it isn't loud or really clicky.

 

[hazozita]

Thanks @f1vefour -- appreciate the info.

 

[f1vefour]

No problem.

 

[TheBloke]

I'm too selfish to recommend you send it back "immediately". I want you to run it through the paces first so we can hear the performance reviews. Then you should send it back for a free replacement... imo.

This was a free original, so I don't think I feel cheeky enough to return it

It's getting a lot better. It's definitely loosened up a lot. It now presses every time when I do so normally, holding the mod like a lighter and using my thumb to press the button. A few times I've tried holding it the other way around, so my thumb is supporting its back and I'm using one of my fingers to press the button - kind of like holding a flute, with my finger pressing a button instead of covering a hole in the flute. (I say as someone who has never held a flute.. )

Anyway, when I hold it 'reversed' like that, for some reason the button doesn't work quite often. I suppose I'm pressing it at a slightly different angle. The difference might be that when I hold it 'backwards', my finger presses down more on the top of the button - the higher end of the slope that the button is on. Where when I press it with my thumb from the front, the 'normal' way, it's more towards the bottom of the button/slope.

Anyway I don't plan on holding it that backwards way most of the time, and in practice it's not affecting me 99% of the time now, and maybe it will continue loosening until it's never a problem. I've still only had it less than a day.

The key thing is that no-one else has seen it. Therefore it seems unlikely to be a design or batch flaw. Just one of those things with mine.

 

[pevinsghost]

I had that same finger versus thumb issue on my invader mini and on a mech mod with a side mounted button. On the invader, it's just the button is a little off center under the rubber, so my big thumb mashed it every time, but my finger would miss.

On the mech, it was exactly like you describe, the angle of the press determined of it would fire or not. Unfortunately, the button completely died, and the mod was all press fit, no way to open it up and fix it, so I never got a chance to see internally what was causing it.

 

[gorman]

Reporting here on perfect fire button. It produces a not so loud click when pressed and it's almost silent when depressed.

Really looking forward to correct TCR values from @TheBloke thanks in advance for them!

 

[gorman]

One question: what's the relationship with temperature of TCR. Meaning, if I vape at 69 (that's the default I found on the box for Ni200) but the correct value is 60, will the temperature be in reality higher than set up or lower?

 

[cigatron]

When you set a higher tcr you're telling the mod that the res of the coil needs to be higher to attain any given temp. If the mod thinks the coil res needs to be higher than it actually does to attain a given temp it will keep increasing the power until it sees that res. So your actual coil temp will be higher than displayed temp.

Conversely, too low of tcr setting will cause the actual coil temp to be less than displayed temp.

I hope that's right....I'm a little lisDexic.

 

[TheBloke]

If the TCR is too low, it won't reach your configured temp; you will need to set the temp higher than you actually want. If the TCR is too high, it will overshoot your configured temp; you will need to set the temp lower than you actually want.

I think that's the same as what @cigatron said, I just got up and am tired

 

[BigEgo]

Phil Busardo will love the fire button placement!

"Boy, I wish the button was on the top slant."

 

[TheBloke]

If the TCR is too low, it won't reach your configured temp; you will need to set the temp higher than you actually want. If the TCR is too high, it will overshoot your configured temp; you will need to set the temp lower than you actually want.

I think that's the same as what @cigatron said, I just got up and am tired

But wait, this is what's generally true. I just re-read your question

One question: what's the relationship with temperature of TCR. Meaning, if I vape at 69 (that's the default I found on the box for Ni200) but the correct value is 60, will the temperature be in reality higher than set up or lower?

On the Apollo (and SXKs), the TCR scale appears to be offset. Therefore 69 on the Apollo is equivalent to 60 on other mods. In other words, you need 69 on the Apollo (or similar number to be confirmed) to get the temp you want.

So I'm not saying you should set your temp lower on the Apollo at 69. 69 should be the right value for Ni200 on the Apollo.

I will try to validate exact numbers soon. On the SXKs, I did already validate Titanium as needing 40 instead of 35. My subjective experience on the Apollo is that 40 is still the right number - ie I put a Titanium build on and it reaches temp at 40, where it does not at 35. Hence me thinking the TCR scale is still offset, like it was on the SXKs on which the Apollo is a new generation.

I will try to get graphs up by tomorrow, Tuesday latest.

 

[gorman]

Wow, TheBloke, you truly are a jewel on the internet. Thank you so much for all the info in this and other threads. Looking forward to your findings. And yes, I misinterpreted what you wrote before and thought I had to put TCR at 60 (but it didn't vape well and I brought it back at 69 before reading your explanation).

 

[AlaskaVaper]

Yeah at the moment I'm only able to press fire about half the time. It generally always works if I make sure to use my nail or the end of my finger, but just using the mod normally it's 50/50 whether it presses.

Annoying - hopefully it will loosen up. If need be I'll take it apart, but would rather not do that on day 1 if it's avoidable.

EDIT: 15 minutes in and it's a lot better now, so it is loosening up.

Wheeey!!! You had me worried Bloke! I went crazy and ordered one myself. I could not resist their special price offer, unfortunately. I will be following closely as you explore the new device. What is the lowest TCR that the device provides to accomodate SS effectively- or can it do SS in TC?

 

[f1vefour]

Not unfortunately, it's a great device

The more I use it the more I like it. Like we were talking about earlier with the way it handles battery sag, I noticed with my battery about half dead (VTC5) I bumped the Zephyrus up to 60 watts and the device automatically lowered it to 59 watts because that's all the battery could provide when under load @ 0.35 ohms. Most devices would simply lie and say they are providing 60 watts, in this case it's only 1 watt so you wouldn't notice..but with a lesser battery another device may only put out 50 watts when 60 is the setting. This would lead you to believe the device is underpowered when really it's a battery issue.

These vtc5's have been charged at least 100 times and a lot of those times @ 2A which is hard on batteries. So I'm pretty happy with the performance of the batteries and the device thus far, TC may sway my opinion but going by @USMCotaku I think it will actually make me like the device even more.

A boost circuit needs a certain amount of voltage to get where it needs to be, in other words when you set 60 watts and your battery is resting at 3.7 volts and under load that drops to 3.4 volts the boost circuit can't quite make the needed 4.58 volts out of 3.4 volts.

Or you may also reach an amp limitation, depending on ohms and voltage applied. We won't know about this until we see the numbers.

 

[gorman]

Hi @TheBloke waiting patiently (not really ) for your findings on the Reliant... is today the day you are going to share with us?
Thanks so much in advance, whenever it's going to be.

 

[rilot]

I've been playing with this device and the stock coils for an Aspire Triton. The stock coils are made of 316 stainless steel which has a TCR of 0.8x10^-8, could I make use of these coils as TC coils with this mod?

The answer seems to be "yes", at least to my limited testing methodology.

I set the device to a TCR of 10, set the temperature to 180C and the power to 60W and let her rip. A bit of an anaemic vape and the TC symbol was lit on the device after about 1 second of pressing the fire button. Cranked it up to 200C and we start getting a much better vape. A bit further to 220C and it was now too hot and tasting burned. Backed it back down to 210C and it's working fine.

This is very interesting as it appears that we can TC with SS coils on this mod.

I tried a dry burn with one of these coils and sure enough the device went in to temp limiting and I got no burning cotton.

 

[f1vefour]

Yes with TCR you can use SS in TC mode as you have already observed.

It's listed as a feature of the device as well.

 

[gorman]

I've received this morning Titanium Gr1 from Zivipf (cleaned with Everclear alcohol it left back several dark grey stripes on the cotton I was using, before getting clean), I used AWG 26 wire and got a 0.40 coil on a 2.5 support. This is in fact quite springy but I manged to keep it quite close to the 2.5 measure (it didn't slide up to the 3.0 "dent" in the tool I use, so it's in between 2.5 and 3.0 at least).

Now, I've set up TCR at 40, as suggested by @TheBloke and things seem to work pretty well. Waiting with bated breath for his more precise findings.

 

[rilot]

Ti seems to work fine on mine at TCR 40. The temperature and vape was similar to the same coil at the same settings on my SX-Mini M-Class or IPV D2.

 

[cdrice15]

Just got one of these and this is my first device with tcr adjustment. What would be a good seeing to stay at for the tcr for a Ti coil @ 0.22ohm?